AKRON, Ohio - Between Akron's last dairy farm and the former Valley View golf course was an enclave of homes built in the 1940s and '50s that have since disappeared.

Now the Summit Metro Parks -- which bought the golf course for $4 million in 2016 and plans to turn 194 acres into a park connecting Sand Run, Cascade Valley and Gorge Metro Parks -- is working to tell the story of those homes.

For the past month, cultural specialists have been researching the site, gathering archival and tax maps, and interviewing anyone who has knowledge about the neighborhood, said Linda Whitman, Metro Parks cultural resource specialist. They're sifting through dirt where eight houses once stood near Cuyahoga Street to unearth any artifacts.

"We make sure they get in and learn learn everything they can before ecologists go in and start moving dirt," said Mike Johnson, Metro Parks chief of natural resource management. "We don't want to destroy resources; not all of them are obvious."

Summit Metro Parks, which was recently awarded a $1.2 million Clean Ohio Fund grant for ecological restoration, works with the University of Akron and the Akron-Summit County Public Library to preserve and curate artifacts and information.

What happened?

From 1887 to 1956, 87 acres operated as the Himelright Farm, Akron's last dairy farm.

In the 1920s, in the Metro Parks' first master plan, the area was identified as ripe for preservation.

The golf course began about 1956, first as nine holes.

Nearby was Wheelock Cuyahoga Acres, a small enclave on Honeywell Drive marketed to both black and white families before the Civil Rights Movement, said Metro Parks Cultural Resource Specialist Peg Bobel.

Ads in the Akron Beacon Journal realty section in the late 1940s boast of Honeywell Drive's "good garden land, large shade trees, ravines and valleys, close to the Cuyahoga River."

At least eight homes were built. News stories, however, in the late 1950s, report damaging flooding, which is likely why the neighborhood never flourished.

The golf course eventually swallowed up the homes, as it grew to 18 and then 27 holes.

What's next?

The Clean Ohio grant will enable Metro Parks to restore streams and wetlands that were covered over to create the golf course. Nonnative plants will be removed, and native grasses and trees reintroduced. Endangered plants and animals, such as wild lupine and red bats, will be protected, Johnson said.

In Phase 2 of the project, Metro Parks will seek $3-4 million in grants to restore 3,000 feet of the Cuyahoga River that cuts through the property. The park eventually will connect to the Towpath Trail.

Akron residents who have knowledge of Wheelock Cuyahoga Acres or information on the residents of Honeywell Drive are encouraged to contact Summit Metro Parks at 330-867-5511.